At The Hill Alan Dershowitz notes that Democratic politicians are condemning behaviors they would undoubtedly tolerate in a president of their own party while Republicans tolerate behaviors they would condemn in a Democrat. He declaims:
The time has come for all Americans who believe in enduring principles of morality and justice to insist on consistency. Ralph Waldo Emerson was wrong when he demeaned “foolish consistency†as “the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.â€
Consistency of principles is neither foolish nor small-minded. It is the essence of any moral system. Principled consistency may be difficult to achieve, especially in our current hyper-partisan atmosphere. But if we are ever to end the partisan bickering and name-calling that is coarsening dialogue and making reasoned compromise impossible, we must insist on a single standard of legality and morality that applies equally to Democrats and Republicans. We are far from that in the current shouting match in which each side calls the other “criminal,†“racist†or worse.
We must declare an armistice in this divisive war of words and agree to do unto your political opponents what you would have your political opponents do unto you. That golden rule of consistency should be as applicable to political debate as it is to personal morality.
On what would these “enduring principles of morality and justice” be based? Exigent circumstances don’t seem like a good base for them. If human nature is infinitely malleable, no enduring principles can be enunciated based on that nature. Blut und Boden?
I’m at a loss.
There is a difference, but it is not the usual blather.
We have two groups that are trying to spread their ideology. Both groups have used violence to promote their religion and to suppress any other, and therefore, they are both terrorists. The difference is that one group is domestic, and the other is foreign.
To the philosophical question, the answer depends upon the one’s metaphysical and epistemological beliefs. As noted, a humanistic basis is unstable, and with evolution, there can be no concept of Man separate from the evolutionary chain that resulted in the human animal. Simply, there is no Man.
A religious deity can ‘short-circuit’ the logic by providing an exiguous basis for Man. (Note: Man is a concept not a physical being.) Rejecting an external basis for Man negates everything that is built upon the external basis. Simply, rejecting the Judeo-Christian God means rejecting the moral code that is supported by this God.
The previous moral code cannot be subsumed without a basis, and the basis must logically lead to this and only this moral code. A replacement moral code must be built from the ‘ground up’ not the ‘top down’. In a ‘steady-state’ universe, universal truths, but in an evolutionary, expanding, and relative universe, nothing is universal including physics.
Defining Man is not an insurmountable problem, but some may find it rather distasteful.
A definition of human nature arrived at politically will not satisfy Mr. Dershowitz’s requirements. That political definition will change over time vitiating his “enduring” prescription.